


First Contact

by foxyk



Series: Tales of the Tiger Tamer [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Justice League - All Media Types, Superman (Comics), Superman - All Media Types, World's Finest (Comics)
Genre: First Meetings, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-08 20:43:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4319964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxyk/pseuds/foxyk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Batman and Robin meet Superman is in the Warehouse District in Gotham where he is crimefighting without permission.</p><p>Things go about as smoothly as expected.</p><p>(Pre SuperBat slash)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks and love to 1LostOne for the beta, without her I'd never be confident enough to post.
> 
> In similar news, I am looking for a DCU fandom beta reader, because keeping me honest with Kasnian dignitaries and Bat-gear as well as run-on sentences is sometimes a big job. Email me at das.enterprisen(at)gmail.com if you're interested!

“I see the shipment, Batman.” Robin’s voice came over the headset.

“Hold fast, I’ll travel to your location,” Batman rumbled, bringing up his location on the Cowl’s heads up display. The HUD was a new feature, it was faster than using a handheld device, but he was still getting used to the controls and it needed tweaking.

“I’m getting a weird thermal reading…” Robin sounded oddly hesitant. Unless there were teenage girls or he hadn’t finished his homework, Robin never hesitated.

“Fall back Robin, I’m two buildings away from the warehouse district,” Batman ordered, leaping across a small alley. He ran across the roof and shot his line at the building across the street, neatly embedding his claw into the molding of the building as he leapt. He was nearly to Robin when the warehouse the boy had been surveilling exploded.

“Robin! Report!” He barked, nearly falling off the building, “Penny-One I need a thermal scan of this city block.” He jumped to the ground, barely slowing his plummet with the decel line.

“The fires are still too hot for people to show up, but I do have a GPS fix on Robin’s boots and he appears to be moving. The blast might have simply knocked his comms out,” Penny-One sounded calm, but that was almost more worrisome than if he were panicked.

“You think you can move _bombs_ into Metropolis and I won’t find out?” A loud voice shouted over the roar of flames. Batman climbed onto a shipping container to see more clearly. 

Floating three feet off the ground was a young man in black jeans, work boots, and a blue tee shirt with a red cape floating off it. He was shouting at the three gangsters who had clearly fled from the burning warehouse at one end of the path of containers. The layout of the containers framing the front of the warehouse made it clear they had wanted to know who was approaching. The gangsters worked up the courage to shoot at the floating man, sending bullets ricocheting off him haphazardly into the crates around them. This must be the new guy, some hotshot metahuman from Metropolis.

Superman.

Life in Gotham was exemplified by the complete lack of sirens despite the explosion and the shooting it would be morning before police or fire crews came. Batman huffed in exasperation; if Superman changed the angle of his body, the bullets wouldn’t ricochet randomly, or if he caught them with his rumored super speed he could ensure innocent bystanders weren’t hurt, but as it was he was causing more damage than the gangsters had, ten times more if he had been the one that set the bombs off.

The warehouse was still too hot to scan for body heat, but the pinging of the GPS tracker in Robin’s boot had him within 50 feet of the Boy Wonder as he continued his search. Batman forced himself to breathe steady breaths of the acrid air; panicking wasn’t going to help anything. His heart leapt into his throat and he nearly whooped with excitement when he heard a familiar laugh and one of the shooting mobsters got tangled in one of Robin’s bolas.

Superman looked around, “What the--?”

“Shit it’s the Bat Brat! We gotta get out of here!” One of the gangsters got smart, popping a few shots in the direction he thought the bolas had come from (he was wrong) before he ran back toward the smoldering warehouse. 

“We got bigger problems than that!” Another announced, emptying a magazine on full automatic at Superman who had landed and was walking toward them. One of the bullets bounced back and hit the gangster in the thigh, Batman heard the bone snap as he fell.

“The only place you fellas are going is prison.” Superman chided. Batman threw a batarang into the arm of the third gangster, causing him to drop the grenade he had pulled out of his pocket before he got a chance to pull the pin. 

Thankfully Batman had a habit of throwing then running because the flying invulnerable metahuman had some sort of laser eyes which Batman had heard reports of, but had never seen in action. The shipping container Batman had been observing from was shorn in half at a sloppy angle, and the top side screeched off as it slid in a huge clatter to the ground. Batman used the sound to cover the sound of his hook catching a double stacked crate on the other side of the clearing, closer to where he had caught a glimpse of yellow cape earlier.

Robin wasn’t on that shipping container any longer apparently, he was on the ground six containers away, throwing trackers onto the fleeing gangsters.

Superman pulled the slightly melted bottom half of a car out of the container Batman had been on, clearly looking for him. “Robin, if you can hear me, blue smoke.” Batman spoke into his comm, stalking to a better concealed spot on top of a triple stack one row back from the clearing Superman was in.

“Well _I_ can hear you,” Superman announced loudly, looking around, “Who are you, and why did you let those guys get away?” Blue smoke fizzled out of a pellet that Robin had chucked at the remains of the building, merging with the smoke that was already pouring off the gutted skeleton.

From his vantage point Batman could see both Superman on the far side of the clearing and Robin creeping behind a shipping container, he had made it over the single stack and was slinking closer to Batman’s position. Superman spotted him, too, _through_ the container. “Nice short-pants kid, shouldn’t you be home with your mom?” Batman gritted his teeth, both due to disdain for the insult, and because there was very little chance Robin would simply let it go. The meta’s eyes were glowing slightly as he looked through the steel.

Robin slid between two containers, through a crack that would never fit a full-grown man. “If you hadn’t shown up with your ratty jeans and your podunk accent I coulda stopped them, but noo, you think you can fight crime with the big guys huh? Rube.” Batman stopped himself from facepalming at his eleven-year-old partner’s lack of respect for life and death situations, but it was a close thing.

“Podunk?” Superman shouted. Batman forced himself to relax despite the urge to grind his teeth, his jaw was beginning to ache. Despite the size of the meta, it was clear that both he and Robin were determined to act like children.

“Yeah, you’re a dumb hick trying to solve crime in ‘this here big city’ and you messed up and let the bad guys get away!” Robin shouted back. Batman used the argument to mask his leap from one crate to the other. Batman threw a bolas around Superman’s arms and Robin reacted by chucking flashbang and white smoke pellets at his feet as well as he took off toward the street. That decision was about the only thing keeping Batman from benching him for a month, proof that the boy had been stalling, not actually courting death by metahuman.

In the seconds that it took Robin to run alongside the container Batman was now on, the meta had _inhaled_ the smoke, broken the bolas cable, and picked up the car bottom, eyes glowing a dangerous shade of red. “Duck.” Batman commanded over the comm as he dropped down, landing nearly around Robin, back facing the car with one foot on either side of Robin’s and his hands on the shipping container. The car landed wheels first at an awkward angle against the container, but the suspension was new and top of the line. Batman still felt at least one snap as his ribs flexed around him, and at least one plate of his body armor would need replaced. As the car settled and fell away from them, he made eye contact with his slightly terrified but seemingly unhurt partner. Batman shot a line to the top of the containers and shoved the grapple gun into Robin’s hand, “Get the tracker to our cop, and then _hide_.” He whispered, hoping his tone was at least a little reassuring. Batman then turned with a shout, “What the hell do you think you are doing in my city?!” 

" _Your_ city?" Superman asked, clearly still flustered. "Who do you think you are?" Robin’s footfalls were getting distant.

"I'm Batman and you just ruined weeks of planning and leveled a building." Batman growled, half stepping closer to the meta to make sure his hips still worked and half as an intimidation tactic. His spine and rib were screaming at him and he channeled that directly into being pissed off.

"Batman is an urban legend and this is just a warehouse," Superman huffed.

"This is Gotham. I'm real and people slum in these warehouses when it's cold. Did you at least check for squatters before you blew it?" Batman growled. He doubted now that Superman was going to chase Robin and he rather desperately wanted to limp away and figure out a new way to track the gang.

"Of course I did!" Superman sounded offended, "There was one guard and he was out smoking, no one else was in there."

Something Robin had said earlier pinged in Batman's mind, the _heat signature_ was strange. "Then you used your heat vision to detonate the bomb?"

"How'd you know about that?" Batman had been closing the gap between them and could see him much more clearly, the metahuman was strong-- not just preternaturally either, he had well-defined musculature-- and he had dark hair that curled messily over his forehead. He didn’t look older than his mid twenties but with metahumans, physical appearance didn’t mean a whole lot. Possibly the most striking part was his eyes, sharp bright blue that Batman could see clearly even in the dim light.

Batman pointed at the shorn cargo crate, "You tried to kill me with it before you threw a goddamn car _at my partner_." They were very close now and Superman actually took a few steps back at the menace in his tone.

"I'm not used to being snuck up on, the explosions were loud and I didn’t react well..." The meta grabbed the end of his cape and twisted it nervously in his hands. It was almost cute, but anger was about the only thing keeping Batman standing now.

"Like I said, people slum in these warehouses, what if it had been a child?"

"Unless I'm mistaken that _was_ a child."

"Robin has more years of experience fighting crime than you ever will." Batman caught the defiant tilt of the meta’s strong jawline and clamped down on that train of thought before it got dangerous. Batman turned to walk away, the threat was contained and it was time to cut his losses; even if Superman tracked him, Robin would be safe. He had a bolt hole just a few blocks north that he could use to muddy the trail.

"What's that supposed to even mean?" Superman was hovering behind him, standing nearly a foot off the ground. He didn’t seem to be aware of it.

"At the rate you're going the military is going to pick you up within five years. You're reckless, undisciplined, impulsive. You'll break one too many skylines in the name of fuzzy goodness, they'll figure out how to hold you, and then they'll catch you. Bye bye open skies."

"Hey I stopped the deal, right?" Superman justified. Batman stopped, steadying his breathing so he wouldn't shout.

"Who sold the bomb to the gangsters? Was it military grade? Where'd they get it? What was the plan for it?"

"Um..." No one with biceps as large as Superman had should be able to pull off puppy eyes as convincingly as he was, but Batman dealt with Robin’s much more lethal pouty face on a daily basis; he was mostly immune.

"I can't go in there until tomorrow to get any pieces of the shell to analyze, by then the GCPD will have ruined the scene, the gangsters are bound to skip town so I'll have to find friends of gang friends and hope they're chatty. You just turned weeks of preemptive planning into months of investigation and there's still a target out there." Batman growled.

"The company that rents that warehouse sends shipments to Metropolis twice a month, usually it's weapons, tomorrow was the next truck. That's... all I've got." Superman had the good grace to look ashamed. Batman already had that intel.

"Next time you think you need to come to Gotham, _don't_." Batman called back, still walking away. When he looked back from the end of the row, Superman was gone.

Good.


	2. Chapter 2

Chief Gordon wasn’t really surprised when he heard a frantic knock on his office window. He was on the eighth floor, but that didn’t seem to matter to the type of people he got visits from. He actually had plans on formalizing a meeting place on the roof when his promotion to commissioner came through, but for now he opened the window and let the tiny vigilante slide in. Robin closed the window decisively and pulled the blinds. That was surprising.

“Robin--” Gordon began.

“Superman is in town, Batman’s distracting him but... I don’t know, Sir...” The words spilled out as Robin slid to the floor under the window.

“Superman?” Gordon stuck his head out of his office and barked an order for more coffee and some hot cocoa.

“That metahuman from Metropolis? Only I don’t know if he’s a meta, he’s got too many powers. Too much power.” Gordon didn’t often hear Robin speak or see him under fluorescent lights, but it struck him again as he handed the Boy Wonder his cocoa that he was younger than his daughter Barbara. Very young. He had to wonder what the boy’s parents thought of his nocturnal activities. 

“Are you okay, son?” Gordon asked, eyeing the boy warily. He had read something about the new ‘hero’ saving people and kittens in Metropolis, but he had seen Robin go head to head with psychopaths and murderers with nothing but a disconcertingly bright laugh and a large, lethal backup. Robin held out a transponder tracker, “From the explosion in the warehouse district, the gangsters got away but I got trackers on them.” Robin offered in that strange, meek voice. He took a drink of cocoa and Gordon commanded he finish it as he took the transponder down the hall to the right officers for the case. 

When he returned to his office the window was open and the mug sat empty on his desk with a hastily scrawled “Thank You” post-it note that was signed with a stylized R in a circle. Shift change seemed to be a thousand years away, and after seeing the usually exuberant Robin so distressed, he desperately wanted to hug his daughter. Gordon left the window open as he lit a cigarette. He contemplated quitting for the thousandth time, and agreed with himself that he’d get a pipe later that week instead of another pack. He had read somewhere that pipe smoking is better for the heart, and Gordon needed to keep his heart healthy if he was going to deal with damn super-powered vigilantes on top of the normal Gotham fare. 

He hoped Batman was okay, and not only for the Boy Wonder’s sake.

###

Bruce had almost driven to pick up Robin himself, but he had to update his files on the Metropolis meta human. He hadn’t yet finished the recording apparatus on the external cameras of the HUD, so he was piecing together the events from memory and an audio reel. So far he had enumerated the meta’s powers as: “heat vision, x-ray vision (investigate link to heat vision-- more vision powers?), strength, flight, invulnerability, enhanced hearing, rumored speed” and he was running through the encounter again before he felt tiny arms wrap themselves around his neck in a crushing hold.

"Dick, my esophagus--” He began, cut off by the tightening of the hold making speech impossible.

" I thought you were gone." Dick whispered from just behind his ear. Bruce reached back and caught the boy by the cape, pulling him onto his lap for a proper hug.

"You didn't even wrap your ribs yet." Dick accused.

"I was finishing the file," Bruce sighed, standing with the boy to walk to the medical bay. Dick had clearly already betrayed him because Alfred was there, disapproving. 

"You can do that anywhere remotely," Dick clambered down out of Bruce's arms and perched in his usual spot on the railing (which overlooked a sharp, long drop that Bruce resolutely did _not_ think about) and pulled up the information on his gauntlet interface, a holographic computer built into the gauntlet itself. As Dick skimmed the report, Alfred wrapped Bruce's ribs with a tut of what could either be disapproval for the injuries or pride that he had saved Robin. Knowing the butler it was both.

"We should see about a trip to Metropolis, map out the sightings then investigate the epicenter." Dick offered as he finished the report.

"I'll get the computer working on that, you need to get to bed, it's a school night." Bruce reminded him.

"Next time I'll make sure to tell the godlike metahumans not to interfere with easy busts on weeknights," Dick sniped, flipping off the railing into a back handspring that had him on the next level up before he started walking like a normal person.

"Watch your tone young man, it wasn't just your night he ruined!" Bruce called after with a wince; he shouldn't have risen to the bait.

"Indeed it wasn't, sir," Alfred didn't quite mumble, Bruce was pretty sure he was incapable of less than perfect enunciation, but the statement was certainly of the grumbling variety.

"I'm sorry Alfred..." Bruce started, but Alfred held up a hand.

"After four years of this, nearing two with Robin, I'm almost relieved to see a normal broken rib, especially when your young ward announces that you were struck by a car thrown by a metahuman. He was considerably more concerned with how you walked up to this overly powerful being and chastised him like a child." Alfred handed Bruce a black tee shirt.

"Well he was behaving like a child so it seemed like the right tactic."

Alfred didn't quite huff, but the sound he made was longsuffering and too abrupt to be a sigh, "Well let's hope that this is the end of it then. Now off to bed you pop too, tomorrow is an early board meeting." Bruce barely had time to set the computer extrapolating data from the explosion and the new internet activity of known linked gang members before he was passive aggressively herded up to his suite and into bed.

He dreamed of a red cape and bright blue eyes.

###

Clark was woken far too early in the morning after his spectacularly failed heroism. The incessant knocking on his door was made somehow worse by the fact that his ears had only recently stopped ringing from the explosion earlier in the night. He pulled on the scratchy white hotel robe and his glasses to answer the door.

“Smallville I swear if you don’t come out of there I’m going to get a maid--” He cut off Lois’s tirade by opening the door. “You look like hell. Get dressed we have an interview.” She shoved a paper cup of cold coffee into his hand with a huff of distaste and stalked away. He closed the door again and drained the coffee before he shucked the robe and supersped into fresh clothes and brushed hair. He shoved a nondescript bag of clinking metal shards farther back into the closet-- he didn’t need the maid finding _that_ \-- and went to find the pissed off other half of his byline.

“Come on Kent, we don’t have an appointment so we’re gonna have to push our way onto the schedule for today,” Lois snapped as he rounded the corner toward the elevator.

“Why don’t we just schedule an interview?” he was sure she had told him the reason, but he had about an hour of sleep and a metabolism that burned caffeine a little too efficiently for it to be of any help. Gotham's cloud cover wouldn't help much either, hindering sun absorption.

“Because the charity gala is tonight and we want our story to go live first.” She sighed.

“Oh, right,” He mumbled, remembering to trip a little as he entered the elevator.

“ _Oh right._ ” She mimicked, her voice low and mocking, “Come on Kent, this is why no one can take you seriously, you’ve got no spine. When we get to Wayne Enterprises let me do all the talking, just try and, I don’t know, straighten your back and look imposing? I don’t even know why Perry even sent you.”

“Because I write better than you,” He mumbled.

“Ooh nice Kent, but next time try it with some air behind it, really helps give the comeback some cachet if the recipient can hear it,” She winked, slapping him on the shoulder. Clark sighed and mentally prepared himself to get kicked out of the Wayne Enterprises building.

*

The security at Wayne Enterprises been better than Lois had expected, and they were the third paper to try the stunt that day (for which Lois blamed him). Today was being praised by the radio DJs as the sunniest day of the year so far and Clark was lounging in the sun on a bench in one of the bigger Gotham parks, replacing his lacking sleep with the radiation. He noticed that the more he used his powers, the more he actually required recharging. It made sense, but as a guy who had barely scheduled time for sleep to finish college in three years, it was a bit of a shift. 

The park was filling steadily now that most of the schools had let out, the playground at the far end was full of screaming children and the large grassy sprawl was crawling with teens and young adults trying desperately to enjoy whatever sun the infamous Gotham storm clouds would allow to creep through. Idly he listened to some conversations, but no one was talking about anything of interest. Susan from Gotham North had apparently broken up with her boyfriend, Billy had stolen Laquesha’s balloon at the playground and popped it, normal kid stuff. 

His mind drifted to the night before and he ran through the incident in his mind with no small amount of wincing; he had behaved abysmally. When Batman had dropped down to shield Robin, he had landed closer than Clark had thought was possible to coordinate. Clark had heard the boy’s nylon cape brush against the body armor as Batman landed, black boots within centimeters of green ones. If Robin had moved _at all_ he would have been crushed by his partner and then by the car. Clark had also heard the older vigilante’s rib break, but he was too busy being defensive at the scolding growl to ask if he needed medical assistance. Maybe Batman had rapid healing? That would explain how he was up and walking just moments after--

“Ace, heel!” A somewhat familiar voice said very near to him, drawing him from his reverie. On the running path a German Shepherd with a black star on his forehead was growling almost silently and backing away from Clark, teeth bared. “I’m so sorry sir he’s never done this before, Ace _STOPPIT_!” The boy on the other end of his leash was mortified, he grabbed the dog’s collar and pulled mightily, really only managing to rotate the dog who had to weigh almost as much as he did.

“I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding,” Clark smiled, holding a hand out to the dog so he could smell it. Mostly animals were fine with him, but he could take some of the smarter beasts by surprise when they noticed his alienness. Ace huffed against his hand, nearly placing his teeth on the skin.

“Ace don’t you bite him!” The boy commanded, and the familiarity pinged in Clark’s brain again. Clark looked at him more closely now, the boy was wearing sleeveless running shirt shorts, both in varying shades of blue, and he had an ankle brace on his left ankle, supporting a recently healed break. “Ace what are you... Wait what…” The boy’s pupils dilated suddenly and Clark heard his heartbeat spike as the sky blue iris disappeared almost entirely.

“You okay?” Clark asked the boy who very suddenly looked like he was going to hurl.

“Smallville! I’ve been looking everywhere for you, we have to go get ready!” He turned around on the bench as Lois stomped across the grass toward him. When Clark turned back to the boy he was greeted with empty air. With a start he scanned the park, the dog and boy were still in view, but they had gotten farther than Clark would have guessed, nearly to the low stone wall on the far end. Clark shrugged and rose to meet Lois who was already inexplicably grumbling about the dress that she had chosen to wear.

###

“Bruce you don’t understand it was _him_.” Dick had called Bruce from the batcave, breaking about thirty rules.

“Dick I understand that you’re upset--” Bruce cajoled.

“No. Even Ace knew something was wrong, the woman who saw him called him ‘Smallville’ and said they had to get ready for something. The charity gala is tonight, what if it’s an attack?”

“Dick calm down, we haven’t gotten any chatter about an attack on the Gala but even if there is something we’ve got security measures in place, you know that.” Bruce rubbed absently at the dull pangs of a budding headache.

“Do you know how many Smallvilles there are in the US?” Dick sighed.

“Ten?” Bruce hazarded a guess.

“Twenty-three. Twelve are in the Midwest which is just a guess based on his accent. Most of them don’t even have graduate lists, and digitized yearbooks? I’ve got four for one Smallville High, but they’re just the last four years and he's older than that.

“Dick you’re going to drive yourself crazy, go back upstairs and let Alfred make you a cup of tea.”

“Driving!” Dick cheered, “Perfect! I can hack the traffic cams for a license plate!” Thanks Bruce you’re the best!” His ward hung up on him.

Bruce had planned on staying a bit late to wrap up some paperwork, but he grabbed his jacket instead, heading home to calm down a junior detective before a soul-crushing charity event took over the Manor and made frank speech impossible. “Smallville,” He chuckled, pulling his office door shut.

“Sorry sir?” His assistant, Priya peered around her monitor at him.

“Oh, just something I heard earlier,” He explained.

“I’m so sorry I did not think you could hear them through the door!” Priya exclaimed, covering her mouth in horror.

“No no, that’s not what I… there was someone talking about Smallville out here?” Bruce’s intuition was screaming at him.

“Yes, a woman demanding an interview before the gala, she did not have an appointment so I sent them away, she had a quiet man she called ‘Smallville’ and ‘Kent.’” Priya was clearly on the edge of terror still.

“You did the right thing, thank you Priya.” Bruce smiled warmly at her.

“Thank you Mister Wayne,” She blushed and hid back behind the monitor.

“Oh, forgot my phone,” He ducked back into his office and nearly launched himself over the desk to get to his computer, bringing up surveillance footage from the anteroom outside his office. There the metahuman stood, large as life in a suit maybe two sizes too big for him and a pair of cheap, heavy framed glasses, hiding behind a loud reporter who Bruce actually recognized, Lois Lane of the Daily Planet. He emailed the photos to Robin through an encrypted channel and told him to check the Daily Planet employee files for a man named Kent. Something was certainly up, and it looked like a job for Batman and Robin.


	3. Chapter 3

"No one would notice if I left now," Dick insisted, smiling brightly across the room at the Kasnian dignitary who had pinched his cheeks with a bit too much fervor. These parties were ridiculous, his bow tie was strangling him and no one would let him have any champagne.

"I thought you wanted to keep the party safe from the meta?" Bruce asked between sips of fake champagne and faker laughter; at least he was suffering too.

"The party has been going for two hours and only that Lane woman has shown up from the Planet, he's not here which could mean he's at large somewhere else." Dick laughed brightly at a joke told in another conversation.

"Two more hours and you can make your excuses, it's not a school night and there are actually kids here your age, it would look strange if you left now." 

"There are two nineteen-year-old twins who are trying pretty desperately to catch husbands, no one here interests me." Dick huffed.

"Commissioner Gordon you were able to make it after all, congratulations on your promotion!" Bruce called brightly, "Dickie you remember the Commissioner’s daughter Barbara, don't you?" 

Well now. This party had certainly gotten interesting, two hours probably wouldn't kill him.

*

Three hours later a slightly lovestruck Robin was patrolling near Crime Alley when he noticed a flash of red behind a rooftop water tank.

"Robin to cave, potential Meta sighting Park Row and 12th." He thumbed over the comm, dropping low to circle around.

"Fall back, I'll mother bird," Bruce still had a smile in his voice, that put him upstairs and four minutes away from uniform, at least another eight at least from the heart of Gotham unless he brought the jet.

"Negative I'm going to investigate." He jumped a skinny alley, circling around the building he'd seen the flash.

"Do not question me." Bruce chided. Still smiling, Robin totally had time to investigate.

"Robin, right?" Superman was floating behind him when he spoke, and Robin only felt a little bad for the birdarang that bounced off his impervious head. He was mostly upset at his yelp.

"Mother bird is not the word." He commed, standing up a little straighter as the 6'3 meta floated at least six inches above the roof. Robin wasn't fully grown so he had no reason to be the same height, but he still felt the need to puff himself up defensively. "You can hear my comm, so you know my name, are you playing dumb or is this that _Midwestern hospitality_ I hear so much about?"

"Robin. Go." Batman practically snarled into the earpiece.

"Look I'm not here to cause trouble, I can hear Batman is mad, I just wanted to drop this off." Superman set a green duffel down on the rooftop and stepped back from it. "It's from the explosion."

"Look Superman,” Robin gathered his thoughts briefly, “I doubt Batman will either appreciate this or if he does he’ll never tell you, but I do. I appreciate your gesture. So I'm going to give you some advice. You aren’t just risking your own neck out there every day. You throw a car at a bad guy, you’re a hero, but you throw a car at the wrong person and -boom- instead of a super-powered hero you’re an armed and dangerous vigilante. Could be worse, the car could kill him and now you’re a _murderer_.” 

Superman started to talk and Robin held up a hand, violently cutting him off, “ _I’m not done._ “ The jump he got from the meta made him feel bolder; he’d been working on his own bat-growl for months, “I only have about six minutes so _stay shut up_. You ever been to a circus and seen a tiger tamer?” 

Superman shook his head in the negative.

“They used to be a big thing, but then a tiger got loose, killed the trainer, a kid in the front row, they had to shoot it right there in the big top. Then cities started to get anxious if there was a tiger tamer listed in an act, started turning circuses away just because they had tigers. In this story you are a tiger tamer, and you need to keep control or you put everyone in danger. If you level a building, that makes you a terrorist, but it also makes Batman a potential terrorist, and that red streak guy in Central City, Green Arrow, every vigilante has the potential to ruin it for everyone if we aren’t careful.” Robin heard the roar of the batmobile’s engine. “My ride’s early. Thanks again for the gesture, just don’t make them hunt _me_ down because _you_ couldn’t control yourself in your next stressful situation.” Robin grabbed the bag and purposely fell off the building into the narrow alley, slowing himself down on the far wall before flipping to the other wall to slide again before he landed on the ground directly in front of the most dangerous car in Gotham. He shoved the bag in before him as he got in the passenger seat, glancing only briefly at the meta on the roof. 

Hopefully he would listen to reason. 

Hopefully.

###

Clark had been scolded before. By coaches, family, teachers. He had never been so completely dressed down in his life, and it was by a 95 pound boy in short pants and pixie boots. “Did a kid seriously run away from the circus to join Batman’s crusade?” Clark mused, still reeling from being told off by nearly five feet of furious preteen.

“No.” A much deeper voice growled from behind him, causing Clark to jump a few inches higher and evoking a very similar yelp to Robin’s not even ten minutes before.

“What?” Clark asked when he finally focused on the heartbeat in the dark spot behind him.

“Don’t float up here and guess at the origins of my partner and I. In fact, how about you get the hell out of Gotham like I told you to?” Batman detached himself from the shadow, the opposite of Robin in nearly every way. Where Robin was brightly clad, small, and young, Batman was tall, over six feet, broad, and he seemed to be part of the darkness in which he moved. Irrationally, Clark really wanted to know what he looked like in a well-lit room; would the effect increase, or cheapen? What was his real voice like under that growl?

“I’m stuck here for another day, but I’ll stay off the streets, I was just here to drop off--”

“Bombshell fragments.” Batman finished for him.

“Yeah, how did you--”

“I’m a detective.” Batman cut him off again. Clark gritted his teeth in frustration, he was pretty sure this was some sort of test of his control, but it stood to reason that Batman really was just that much of an asshole.

“I am sorry, for what it’s worth.” Clark focused on not mumbling as he apologised.

Batman walked to the edge of the building and shot a line to a nearby gargoyle, “Next time Perry White wants a story covered in Gotham, tell him you’re busy.” 

Clark was reeling when Batman jumped, and by the time he came to his senses, the masked man had disappeared into an open window in a building filled with lead piping, people, and other obstructions. Clark would have to enter the building to manually find Batman, and by then who knew where he might be. Clark gulped hard; Batman knew his identity, but he didn’t seem to want anything for that information. Yet. He forced down a shudder and flew back to his hotel room, snuck in the window he had left open, and sat for a long time at the edge of the bed, thinking.

###

The next day, Lois Lane and Clark Kent were on the first train from Gotham to Metropolis, a fact that no fewer than four trackers and nine bugs planted by Robin while Batman distracted Superman confirmed. His laptop was also compromised, and though he had had his cell phone with him during the encounter, once the two devices shared a WiFi signal Batman had it too. Once he was out of Gotham, most of that surveillance went passive, waiting for key phrases or words to alert the Batcomputer. Batman nearly had to remove the filter setting for Bomb after a particularly rowdy friend of Clark's kept calling everything "the bomb" and "way cool junior."

Batman put the meta out of his mind for the most part, though he continued to gather data on all of the emerging heroes, continually upgrading his own security and policing news reports that got too close to the truth about himself or, more rarely, Robin. Where most people seemed to accept that the Batman myth was probably true, it was harder for the scum of Gotham to convince people that a small boy in pixie boots was flipping his way around Gotham arresting pickpockets and mobsters, even on the (increasingly prevalent and easy to hack) Batman message boards. Cell photos uploaded of the duo magically vanished from the internet and CCTV cameras couldn't get their pictures if they tried, so the Batman and his potential small partner stayed more myth than fact, which was just how he liked it. 

Though as with all good things in Bruce’s life, that comfortable existence between Gotham city and her invisible vigilante fell apart nearly three years later in the smoking wreckage of Gotham’s City Hall. Worse yet, it wasn’t entirely Superman’s fault, it was mostly Bruce’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am looking for a DCU fandom beta reader, email me at das.enterprisen(at)gmail.com if you're interested!
> 
> Thanks be to 1LostOne for this beta, any remaining mistakes are mine (you can't have them).


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